Hello, welcome to sitcom gigs. I'm Dave Cohen and I'm James Kerry James and I have read all 65 scripts Yes, we have we have been running a sitcom challenge You've you entered in November that was the deadline and we have been reading over Christmas and New Year and everything Yeah, and we have some notes and observations What we've done is we've read the first ten pages of every single script and some will be going through to the next the next round Where we'll read the whole script, but we've got some observations about that coming up after we've talked about yes The writer skills the writer's Guild Awards happened every year They have this outstanding contribution to writing award which invariably goes to somebody incredibly well-known or famous people like Tom Stop Island when it Terry Pratchett Michael frame Carol Churchill and and then also some TV writer Russell T Davis So imagine our surprise when the winner this year was John Finnemore and Full of women youth yes John Finnemore a lot of you may well be saying who probably not our regular sitcom geeks This is because you all know who John Finn is he writes mainly radio comedy And so this is the first time that the award has been given to a comedy writer So an out comedy writer for radio and or TV and it's the first time a radio writer has won the award So lots of things that James and I've talked about a lot including we have interviewed John That's one of my favorites a couple of episodes 76 and 77 We did a live interview with John which was fab and you'll understand if you listen to that Why he's such a brilliant writer and very liked by other writers You know we are all intensely jealous of the astonishing talents that has been poured into his body Yeah, and also presumably many of you will have listened to many of his shows cabin pressure of course is sitcom that Everybody loves it the Benedict Cumberbatch There's one of the performers in that and then there's the sketch series he's written a program series Yeah, yeah, two series at least two series of double acts double acts and cabin pressure both he's the only writer as far as I know To have won right skilled award for best radio show for two different Completely different radio shows Sarah Campbell's one it twice for this for yeah kind of the same show So the message for all of us for all of you out there is you know There's hope for comedy writers you can become you can win the writers guild outstanding contribution and radio writing is alive and well I haven't thought it would be killed off by the internet but there was the the best radio comedy award went to prepper by Caroline Moran and James Moran and There would have been you know 30 40 entrants. I guess I don't come in what else was nominated. Yeah, no I can't remember madam there by Brenda Gilhooly as one of them you can hear on a forthcoming episode Where we speak to her and donnae Farrell at the jordel book festival and side notes if you join us on patreon You'll be able to listen to that interview straight away very quickly very soon And so the winner of the best online script the second year running was for a script a short sketch by Hannah George and Tasha Danraj and that's in fact That's the third year running that's the Isle of White was won the because the previous one was a Merrick lard okay, and well they all are white bass they're all born well Hannah and Merrick most born in the Isle of White Oh wow, I don't know why owning that award.
That's quite something isn't it? Yeah, I know and best TV sitcom went to brassick by Danny brocklehurst and I have not seen brassick I'm afraid I haven't seen that either which is very poor but also there are a lot of comedies on and The fact is although we've been mown the lack of mainstream studio sitcom as they've often points out across the board There are a lot of sitcoms on television or half hour comedies being reimagined for for the next generation as it were Yeah, so there is hope which is why I guess over 60 of you have written sitcom scripts and sent them to us and we have read them and we have noticed some sort of common themes Among them and which we thought we would explore in this episode and and then the next episode I think we will having having read all of the finalists as it were we can then talk about you know three Act structures or whatever people seem to be what other themes are going and what lessons can be learned because there's a great incentive for people to Really learn these lessons because the writers room window is opening soon isn't it very soon? Yes? It's I don't know the exact dates But it's going to be sometime in March and that's it's usually open for about four or five weeks So you're looking at a deadline of about three months from now about Easter Yeah, and that should be enough time We hope if you go back look your scripts and if you've got anyone else who's listening if you've got a script an idea for a script Three months should be enough time for you to to get it working and thinking about it and and sending it off to the writers room So there are quite a few I think we should start very much with the kind of overall takeaway from this Which was that the first point which it seems like a minor point But I think it is something that I feel and I think James also feels we haven't maybe we just haven't pushed this hard enough But but there are some very simple very basic mistakes that people are making that don't need to be made in terms of how your script is formatted and names of characters and Some of that the information that is needed for someone when they are reading your script and there are quite a few scripts where Things like sort of names people were wrong or confusing or changed or scenes one scene would sort of blur into another scene And therefore in terms of concrete practical advice It would be worth sending your script or giving your script to someone who doesn't work in the industry Tell them to read it and then summarize to you what happens and if they can't do it It might be that your script really is not clear enough.
Yeah, we got we need to be really You know bear in mind that the script readers are reading dozens and dozens of scripts and they hey They want to find a funny script. They want your script to be good I cannot stress that enough and I don't think listen is truly believe it Yeah, it's no it's no fun to keep you out absolutely not and I read every single script hoping that this next script was going to be a potential Winner or finalist or that we've discovered some brilliant new talent that you know also we can claim some credit for it So it's completely misplaced but but you don't mean there is a spirit of optimism among the readers Yeah, rather than a who can I keep out? Of the industry so you know do bear that in mind and therefore you need to make your make their lines as easy as possible by laying out your scripts in a very clear easy to read format and Making it so that we know who the hero is And we know what they're trying to achieve and we know what what's happening in the background We know you know you don't overdo it, but just clarity whether it's funny or not is a separate issue We can get on to that But just the basic craft of laying it out and giving the reader enough information to understand the scene and no more Mmm. Yeah, that's hard that takes practice.
Yeah, it is very basic and it is something that you need to you need to sort of keep your eye on and We talk a lot about all the things that you have to be all those all those plates that you're spinning while you're trying to write sitcom And yes, it's this character needs to be doing this and this story needs to be moving on and this character That's a regular character needs needs a scene now just because they haven't been in for a while so you've got all these things going on and then but if you've decided to change the name of a character or You know you've got some five characters in one scene and three of them we've never met before You know that that's for somebody who's they get something like 3000 scripts at writers room So somebody who's job that day is to read a hundred scripts. They're gonna just Read a hundred in a day, but they probably will read a dozen or 15 or 20. Well, it's ten pages Yeah, you know they'll read the first they'll read the first ten pages and you know if they can read the prove them quickly That's great. And then that they all those ones will probably automatically go into the maybe pile Yeah, but if they're sort of stopping and then I'm right hang on who's this character?
I've seen this country for what's this story? Have we had this story and and that's you're just making life harder for yourself Yeah, and so that's that's the kind of very simple basic my first major point and for one of my criteria was basically Does this go through to the next round as it were it was when I hit page 10? Do I want to keep reading? Yeah, and if I do that's a fairly good sign that that's gonna go through and if I'm already confused and You know or feel that this is not really working or whatever then the next 20 pages are not gonna fix that Yeah, so so yeah, so that is really really key any other headline So yeah, well, I suppose for me the main headline and this sort of came over that sort of reading about you know By about sort of 40 30 or 40 in and I was thinking that The area that we we do we do talk a lot about it But it's hard to be very specific but because it's not something that you can just teach but it is the thing that we stress a lot Why am I writing this?
Why am I doing it now and just? Something that really we need to push more on I think we need to think a lot more about is why what is different about my script? Where am I taking this script that it hasn't that nowhere else? No one else has been to before and this is and this is something that's true of it's it's true of a joke It's true of a sitcom.
It's true of a sketch. It's true of a character Yeah, I mean if you have we seen this character before why why are we seeing this character again in 2020? Yeah, and it's like if you follow Twitter to read jokes and something happens and you'll see The same joke come up 30 times if you're if that's one of the reasons that you follow Twitter There's one of the reasons I do and certainly I'm Will be very upset if I think of a joke and I and actually if I think of a joke I want to put it on Twitter I will do a double check and make sure no one has already done the joke right there's no point in putting it up If somebody else has already done that not like poached jokes that often I sometimes have the urge to do that and It's you really can't just put unless you know unless you're Paul Norton Yeah, you can't put the first thing that comes into your head onto the page. Yes, because it's your former Peter Cook Yeah Yeah, that's a very small list of people whose first idea is way funnier than everybody else's second or third idea Yeah, and if it is then you are you know one of the biggest earning comics on the TV show David Mitchell probably Which case would you like to be a guest on the show?
Yeah, but the rest of us mere mortals and in fact if you watch if you were to go to a Recording of I got news for you. You would be aware that you sit there for almost two hours so even Paul Merton who might say sort of seven or eight very funny things in an episode of The I got news for you has also said 25 not very funny things So and so you know you be aware of that you have to go beyond okay Here's the funny thing and lots and lots of scripts were and they do you know that we had a lot of scripts set in similar place We had a lot of scripts that on spaceships skip the scripts about influencers the minefield of dating workplace sitcoms and there's nothing wrong with that, you know, that's what all sitcoms are you know they are about There about things that people have done and have seen before so sitcom if you're doing a workplace sitcom then you know what let's think about the office and Right, so what are we what has happened since the office? What has moved on since the office what is a workplace sitcom now? What the whole idea of what work is has has changed?
It's a massive challenge in fact last year Oh, right and I were writing we we tried to we worked on a sitcom set in an Amazon warehouse Attempting to kind of create a new version of what what is a workplace? And we had a character who was part human part AI and so you know looking and silly it didn't work, you know There's something about trying to do a second I'm the only trying to kind of ended up trying to make it like dinner ladies So it was more about it was more about what they were doing in the breaks and and because you know It was very hard to sort of really do stories with that setting a warehouse once you've gone through running to get as many things And put them in baskets possible But you have to think a lot more and I just think we're not thinking enough about Yeah, okay. Well, this is a sitcom about the end of the world. Yeah, okay There's a lot of them out there now and again, I don't want to pull rank on this again But it was about 10 12 years ago.
I think I wrote of an end of the world type sitcom and again It didn't get anyway. It wasn't the right thing at the right time But you know and then the road came out the book As grim as it gets but and then it was made into a movie which is even grim But even before that, you know 1980s Mad Max was the original you know post apocalypse will and and you know There's a lot of people out there who are trying to come up with the same idea as it or have come up with the same idea as you But they've gone beyond just saying okay Well, it's a sitcom about the end of the world and there were of those End of the world sitcoms, you know to three of them had made you know had gone beyond just the oh, it's the end of the world But you really have to think more about what am I bringing to this idea that has never been seen before and that that was probably the number one Thing that for me that reading all these some scripts back to back. Yeah, that was the thing I picked up. It's like all right.
Here's this is another dating sitcom fine, that's good, you know, it's relevant to people but what it what is happening in this dating sitcom that I haven't seen Before what is it about these characters? Well, you know and again as we say again and again. What is a sitcom about is what do I want? This is what do I get?
Well, we know this character isn't gonna get a successful day because it's a sitcom Yeah, what is it about the character now? You really have to spend a lot of time in your head Yeah, I think for me to to sort of additions to that really one is I completely agree There were quite a lot of sitcoms loads and loads of scripts which did feel like they were setting a perfectly understandable place But there was no compelling reason as to why we were Why this show should be on television Which I know is not necessary why people are writing scripts and so there is an element of these are spec scripts that are being written To show what you can do But if you want to show what you can do you do have to show you have insights and you do have the ability to write Contemporarily rather than just show technical ability and you have to show a lot of technical ability in order to To overcome the fact that your show is not really of the moment So there are there are one or two fairly genre sitcom scripts and one of which is particularly good The downside of it is that there's no real reason why it couldn't have been on 20 years ago or couldn't be on again in 20 years time And that's that's not a good thing. I think generally so The other thing for me in particular was that there was an awful lot of shows which were set in places that had basically had it That so rather than being in a setting which is an unusual situation as in people adjusting to a new normal so for example in a Had a meeting the other day with a producer who basically despite the fact these quite important doesn't really get his own office anymore And they're all hot they're skiing and overall It's a little bit too cramped and all you know That was it was in BBC studios and so the front so that it used to be a terrible use of space at the BBC that main that main entrance And they've now packed it with mezzanine floors and cafes and everything and it's actually really quite population dense And they made really good use the space actually it feels quite vibrant actually and so in one sense I think it's done a great job But if you're used to long corridors and having your own office and suddenly you're thrown into this sort of hot-desking Environment where you basically can't concentrate on anything that would be interesting to see but Every single office. I saw look like it was an office from about 1986 but on top of that everyone was really sad and down and depressed and Lots of the scripts didn't really make me happy or excited and I think go back to episode 124 where we talked to David Tyler And he sort of dared to make the suggestion that maybe your situation should be funny And so it's just worth thinking about what is it about your situation that makes people happy and excited?
And I think the success of the office in particular as made people think I would show that somewhere down the downbeat and depressing Can be successful means that I can do my show in a place. That's basically it's an old bike shop It's an old betting shop. It's an old it's an old that and actually you're asking quite a lot of the audience to go with you on this Yeah, and it feels more like reading a play by pinter Yeah, and that's not really a sitcom And I know there is a new people are reinventing the genre and that kind of thing And if you're Craig Cash or Caroline or Ricky Gervais or whatever you can do that but I think unless you've got and actually you can also possibly do the This is the end of an era on this kind of world You again you can do that if you have really good insight into why that world is finished So there probably is a hospital comedy drama or sitcom Which sort of says the way we currently do things is actually untenable and it might be a bit dark and satirical But that would be fine But you would need insight into that because you would need to have been a surgeon or a ward sister or something a bit like getting on I was going to say getting on is an example of that. Yeah, that's that's written with a Clear insider knowledge of what has happened to the NHS in the last 15 years So that's that's a good example I think because that's you know how many bloody shows do we have to watch that set in hospitals?
Yeah, okay, there are lots and lots of them But actually getting on is different. Yeah, and you can feel the difference. Yeah, I mean full disclosure if I've been sent that script I wouldn't have liked it and I didn't particularly love the show I because it is quite downbeat But you would be able to see the insight and the oh wow This is really got some some clout behind it and some good writing It's not a laugh a minute and I would rather it would be you know, I would rather eat scrubs Yeah, you know, that's fine That's a personal preference but the quality of the writing and the situation and the insight and the why this why now why you question would have been fully answered Yeah, so you know there is an element of taste in it Which also we have to put up our hands and say we you know we all have things that we like and don't like but you really can tell Yeah, so that was one of my one of my things I was a bit disappointed by was the fact that lots of shows were in Places which felt like they were very much in the past. Yeah, and Everyone who went to them just thought well, this is crap.
This job is crap. This industry is done for or not even this industry Is done for it's just there was no appetite amongst any of the characters usually bar the keen person who actually wants to be there And I think you're asking a lot of your audience to make that a happy place for them. Yeah, so that would be And that comes back to and again, this is the root one thing and I understand this because you know when I was starting out as a writer, this is exactly what I did I would think right I Knew instinctively without having learnt it already in books Just from the sitcoms and the telly that I watched is that cock comedy British comedy tends to be about these sort of loser people who they want something and they can't have it and I As a stand-up anyway, I was getting most of my humor from my own life and my own experiences And so my next step then as a writer was okay, so I am the best or I am my best room to I know me better than anyone else So what do I want? That time it may well have been a girlfriend or you know success in my work What do I get I don't get a girlfriend?
I don't get success in my work and then again the next step from that is okay So I had many many opening scenes and I saw many of them here as well where you know he our character scene one loses his job and then he goes home and finds his girlfriend has left him and Only years later. I found out this is you know, this is some people saying Oh, yeah, we get so many scripts where the person has lost their job and then all their partners go and it is It is again. It is the root one start and you have to think okay. Let's get beyond that.
This is a sitcom This isn't this isn't real life. This is fiction. This is made up But at the heart of it. I understand the rhythm of comedy that requires a loser person who wants something that they can't have that doesn't mean that They're downbeat people necessarily it can mean they are the most optimistic person in the world You know, I want exactly what and they never get what they want but that's the funny thing is they think oh, yeah Oh, well, it didn't work that time because of this and we miss remember shows that are successful by Because of comedy classic scenes.
So we forget the fact that Basil faulty is often quite happy You know to me. Yeah, he doesn't start every episode filled with rage and disappointment He starts every episode filled with I am trying to run a classy hotel Yeah, and then every time something disappoints him and lets him down and he discovers he's got the wrong guests And you know that he begins every episode with a spirit of optimism And I think that's the other thing that I found interesting about lots of their scripts is there was a baked-in Cynicism from the start that for me would suggest that this show or this situation has no long-term future And therefore I think you're making it quite hard to make that an appealing location where we could just potentially get even 12 episodes I'm sick on let alone 90. Yeah, and I think that is a modern development So there is definitely a this kind of post-modern thing of like we you know, we we've stripped away the facade and you know Gary Shandling show was one of the early versions of this, you know, this is a sitcom starring Gary thing to get And then he's going to meet the people and he comes on and he talks to the audience and snap He's into a scene. Yeah, it's like oh hang on and you know and this follows We thought I should use it that as well and then of course Mrs.
Brown's boys, you know It's a bloke in a dress sharp and so there is that sort of that that deconstruction comedy Which you know has its place I think as you say I think it has infected yeah world of fiction and you know This is why it's here. Okay. Here's a little sidebar. I Think because as a society especially amongst opinion-formers and writers and stuff we have abandoned a fairly consistent Judeo-Christian framework of of big of I think basically nihilism which is prevailing at existentialist despair You're really you're really pushing a boulder uphill if you're gonna write a sitcom that is essentially nihilistic Yeah, because if if one action doesn't lead to another action If there's no real justice in the world if bad stuff just happens and that's it The sitcom traditionally has been formulated on the view that there is justice and that the liar will be exposed and the and the cheat Will be brought to justice and the proud will be humbled if you think that that doesn't exist in the world And that is a lie.
I think that's quite challenging to see what the next generation of sitcoms will look like in a world that will bring happiness and joy Well, I would even that's my theory I would even go halfway between the Judeo and the Christian and until about the Greek because Aristotle is the person who basically invented this story obviously he didn't so he just wrote down what we know as Instinctively as humans as we like stories that have a beginning and a middle and an end and a character goes on a journey And if it's a drama they go and they look for something and they grow And they become better people or different people at the end of the drama. Yeah, and if it's a tragedy They don't grow those that it goes they get as far as the end and nothing's changed And if it's a comedy it's a famous race is a tragedy plus time and perspective to look on it and actually say huh actually that story of comedy That story of tragedy is actually really funny, and I think that I disagree with you I don't want to get into the nitty gritty of the the nihilism that there is a sort of nihilism in built to comedy that you know You do always fail in comedy. You never do get what you want But the journey whatever is my the drama of comedy or tragedy whatever is the journey that is the interesting part of it And I think there's just it's a very basic thing and again You know James and I we were talking about this just before the podcast and we've been doing these now for nearly five years and it's really yeah, so 2015 I think we started and You know maybe the these areas, you know And we talk about plots and characters and we talk to successful people and about it and you know and I feel I've learned a lot from it I just wonder if you know we haven't we haven't maybe put enough Because it is so hard to pin down It's like you you know you need to kind of create these characters It's not something that you can sit down a desk and write down Okay, so what is it about this character? I mean you might try and do that you can probably do some exercises with a character You take your character and stick them in a pub or take them to the football match or whatever Got the mean Alice's Wonderland and see what happens to them But a lot of it and I find when I'm thinking of characters You know a lot of it is just me walking around and these characters my head and I'm trying to I'm trying to sort of see where they're Going in a way that hasn't happened before and it's a slightly nebulous thing to be able to pin down and in the end It's like you know when you and I think this is a really crucial thing Which I just thought of this morning is like when you say you know when we say Basil faulty He's a snob you've got the essence of Basil faulty there the idea that oh right okay So here's a character is a snob the idea that John please may have just sort of come up with that in a moment You know that's like years and hours of work And I think one of the main things so this is the main sort of contradictions of like the best writers and the best actors is They don't it doesn't look like writing it doesn't look like acting It just looks like normal people being normal But the amount of work that has gone here to make that seem normal the amount of work that an actor puts in to To seem like it's it's real.
You know but the key the key word is actor Yeah, they are not that person Kelsey grammar is not phrase. Yeah, he is an actor right reading the words But we totally totally buy into him because he's a brilliant brilliant actor and also the scripts are absolutely brilliant And they just they didn't just come out of no, you know Really really have to work at your script to make it look like you haven't worked it. Yeah, and that's the country That's why so many people want to be writers. They're well.
Oh, that looks quite easy. Yeah, you know There is a deceptiveness about it And I think that's another reminds of another slightly common theme which is to be expected is that is is overriding So lots and lots of talking and actually lots of lines which you just don't need which I know you might get in regular life But the moment you put them on the page. They just seem unnecessary You know a lot you know quite surprising lives on the lines of like oh hello bill how are you I mean that's not really you might say that in real life But that's not really telling you anything about the person speaking and he'll say oh fine, you know Well, I think well that's that's two lines that haven't got you anywhere They can go and I think it's that being brutal with the dialogue So that we're just being given the information so that every scene just moves along and you know a lot of the first ten pages Loads and loads of opening scenes were six or seven pages And you think you could have done all of that in in a page and a half There was so little dialogue there that we actually had to have Because the story unfortunately as is often the case and we begged you Didn't start your page 9 that's all we really could have started on page 2 or page 3. Yeah, and there was an awful lot of Sort of static first day at work scenes There must have been out of the 60 it feels like often it just feels like I read at least 20 25 scripts where somebody arrives for their first day at work yeah, and everyone is introduced to them and In a way you can I mean I think we have said that's a possible way of setting up your episode of doing a pilot episode But you just don't get to do that for nine pages, you know You really do need to why it could be that second day at work And they sort of can't quite remember everyone's name and you might be able to find a way to cheat that or something But it feels like It just feels like every sitcom script in like that It feels like all of the actors it feels like all of the characters have literally been sitting there in silence Statically until the lights go up and then they start acting and being and what you really need for the sitcom To establish it very quickly is you want to feel like life has been going on For weeks months and years in this current situation and that we're walking in on a dynamic situation So you know, please don't support you.
I can't quite remember how we start. Yes. I do They're in a Chinook on their way to diffuse an IED And then they do yeah, they're very and then my change character gets shot in the head They're ambushed and that's kind of giving you a sense of this is the world that we're in yeah And so you know you just sort of you want to find a way of showing a regular day at work Maybe but an atypical day, but if your workplace is somewhere where nothing ever happens Then you're making your life very difficult for yourself. Mm-hmm.
So therefore you want to be very careful where you're setting your characters and where you're setting Your action I guess or you might just you want to say okay. This is a workplace where nothing happens all the person that's there is dissatisfied and In that case or how do you you know, let's look at ways that people who are dissatisfied at work Let's look at what's already out there look at the like Tim in the office You know, he hates being at that work It's a boring job and he has found these ways you know He's winding up Gareth his way and chatting up the one is the other you know He finds the he he's at his ways of escape and you know He is he is so obviously superior to David Brent and you know He that's what he gets out of that being in that really boring job is just annoying David Brent and getting away with it And I think about porridge, which isn't so much a workplace But obviously it's a place where everybody well It's a workplace for the for the the prison officers And so you know what that's all about how do the people who are there and they don't want to be there obviously They're in prison how do they make that life bearable for themselves? And it's all about the little victories that they managed to get you know, and it's it's such small things You know, it's like sort of one cigarette is a whole story in an episode of porridge And that's the thing because you know, there's not what else is there in their life It's some tiny things take on huge significance and you know and you get it a lot in in Brooklyn 9.9 even you know Six or seven series in and you've got eight or nine characters and you still you've got a whole subplots about something that's in the fridge Yeah, or somebody's dietary habits or whatever So you know, these are the things that you're looking for in your workplace sitcom where where is the comedy? Where is the funny and that's you start on day one and again, it's an obvious it's the root one thing And you do not quite trusting your audience To know who these people are and you know, you know, you're getting to know these characters Well, you kind of need to get to know them better before you start writing them.
I think that's that's another sort of general thought about it You think well, I'm you know somebody's gonna be reading this they want to know who these characters are so I'm going to So first day at work. Well, that's a really easy good way to introduce them But actually as James says you can go for much further, you know, and if you think about when you're at work You know, and you're in it You're doing a job You don't like it you become a character at work you are the you are David work or James at work, you know, you're not you you kind of you're putting on a mask if you hate it there Because you're not gonna sit you're not gonna. I hate my work or so you're gonna go in say hi morning You're gonna be there, you know, you might be the kind of hey I'm really cheery because my life's so miserable. I drop this for once for someone.
Yeah, and you know that does protest too much We think yeah, it's right I can do this I can get through it. Yeah, I need this job on all over it is Well, even better though I need this job because I have a greater goal which is I want to Do the Tour de France and therefore I need income in order to do this other thing But the idea that somebody sticks at a job that they hate without any greater purpose Mm-hmm again I just think you know, you're really asking the audience a lot because actually you might say on one level well people people do go to jobs They don't like and they just live with it well They do live with it, but they live with it because they have a great they don't define themselves by their work They define everyone defines themselves by something So if you you know loads of people go to jobs that are particularly well-paid or rewarding because the hours are convenient And the other convenient is because they have to pick up their kids from school a particular time and what that shows you is They care more about their kids. Well, let's see evidence of that in the workplace that actually their whole life is based around their kids Which is an entirely reasonable normal human thing or they're based on the fact that you know, they collect Model railway trains and they need to be able to finish at this particular time because that's their greater love and their greater passion That's fine But if you're currently defined by how much they don't like the thing they're doing now Wow, that's that's not a long term. That's not backing that horse.
Yeah, and I think As we're talking about character now, I mean again, these are things they sound so simple and when you say them You have your main character who wants something they can't have it They won't get it because it's comedy and There needs to be lots of funny ways in which they don't get it And then the funny ways that they don't get it is the way that they try and pursue it and the more they try and pursue it The less it's gonna happen. They are and they are the architects of their demise I'm sure I have said this loads and loads of times you know proactive your character your main character has to be proactive and These things they do sound simple and they are but they actually as I say making it look simple That is the hard thing but get your first character right and then worry about the other cat because a lot again This is something I had a problem with this when I was writing, you know Me me and something and me and something else was that you know, I gave all the funny stuff to the other characters funniness And actually, you know, if you look at Seinfeld, which is a which I love the conceit of it Seinfeld is about a stand up comedian called Jerry Seinfeld played by stand up comedian Jerry Seinfeld And he's he is the straight man in that show and the other the mad crazy people are all actors playing mad wacky people and You know, they sort of get away with that because they start out with him doing some stand up. Yeah, he's funny And they established that oh, yeah, he's a funny guy. Okay, we've established that yeah now.
Hello. This is my flats now I'm not I'm sort of paraphrasing in a deliberately unfunny way, but it's a hi I'm Jerry Seinfeld This is my flat and here are three people who are going to come to my flat and they're gonna act out some really wacky stories Here's my friend from college. Here's my ex-girlfriend. Here's my wacky neighbor.
Yeah, that's it Yeah, isn't it and here are my obsessive parents who now live in Florida. Here's Uncle Leo. Here's all these you know Here's Newman's my sworn enemy all that kind of stuff. Actually, it's a very straight and I think one other observation We should probably wrap this up and do another one of these right is there are a lot of scripts where the show was clearly about the person Starting on their first day at work and they were introduced to people and they were all funnier than the person And the person who were clearly invited to think is the hero of the show Demonstrated no funny characteristics or personality flaws whatsoever Yeah, and that's quite I think that's a problem That takes us into something which we can deal with in more detail in the next episode where we start to talk more about stories and And the story and stories and you know, is this a sitcom?
Are you actually writing a sitcom? So but we'll come to that in the next episode we are already Probably at about the limits for most people we want to try and quit while we're ahead Yeah, always leave the audience wanting more they say and we we are going to say that you want more So we're going to stop so so do do standby We will be announcing the the winners do follow us on Twitter and on Facebook and on our and do join us on patreon We're gonna run a competition where we're gonna give away a whole big stack of merch Maybe once we reach a hundred patreon subscribers We can say right all patreon subscribers will now potentially have their names drawn into a hat and we'll be you know We can do it. You know, we haven't quite done. We're gonna do it yet, but we've got a ton of stuff to give away So that's all to come but do join us on patreon.
We do and you will then hear loads of extra audio Episodes are going up straight away We're you know, we're interviewing people We've got some great interviews coming up and you'll get them the moment We record them and you will be able to steal a march on that BBC writers room window as well One other thing to mention is is that actually if you join patreon you can listen to us trying to create our own sitcom And it's called the moment it's called soup to nuts. That's the process Yeah, that's it. We have been talking for around about seven or eight hours around the idea We've we've written a kind of storyline. We've got characters in our head, but we haven't yet written a word and I think that's If you want to understand more about the process of well, you know, yeah, I've got a great idea That's great.
We all have great ideas now. What how are we going to make this idea different? Yeah, and you know, we've sat here and we've talked around it and we've gone around in circles and we've gone at dead ends and we've You know, and then we thought oh, this is a fantastic And we've gone down that route and that hasn't what you do that that is the boring frustrating But ultimately necessary work that you need to do to get to your sick component And the idea has as it's evolved has said something about you know, we've really tried to address the why this why now why us? Yeah, because it's sort of set in a town That's a bit like the town that I currently now live in that used to have an industry in one particular area And then it happened then quite towards the end you sort of realized oh my family had a business like this This is my story and so but it takes a lot of effort before you commit to writing any dialogue or even working out exactly who the show is About maybe yeah, so hopefully that will give you an insight into how you need to sort of incubate these things Rather than rushing in and which is he just said and done especially if you've got a busy day job and kids and all that kind of stuff So we fully understand that but anyway standby for the next episode where we will have more reflections on the batch of 60 odd scripts Which I think hopefully will be a bit more forensic in a general way We're not gonna pick out individual scripts or anything, but we've got quite a lot more to talk about so thank you Thanks, listening bye bye.
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